Pitch Black Alchemy

program note:

The name "Pitch Black Alchemy" means a number of different things to me. In a literal sense, alchemy is a speculative philosophy that became popular in the 12th century, centred around the transmutation of base metals into gold. I imagined this process taking place in darkness and the bursts of light that must appear and fade mysteriously. This image served as inspiration while writing the piece. However, the more time I spent thinking about the title, the more it seemed to be referring to the process of composition itself. Lead becoming gold in the darkness through thousands of imperceptible changes. Writing music feels like alchemy sometimes. Both in the sense that I can create something shiny and wonderful from nothing, but also that its a fake science requiring some unobtainable magic objects or spells to happen. Sometimes I wish composing could be as reliable as science. But for now, it remains similar to the idea of pitch black alchemy, intriguing and surreal and utterly confusing.